Spine Archive: Joint-Preserving Procedures

To learn more about a healthy spine please explore Dr. Leone’s Knowledge Center.

While preserving one’s spine may seem to have a straightforward answer, it really depends on a case-to-case basis as to how patients can go about protecting the spine and in more likely situations, what patients can do to rectify their spinal problems. In patients exhibiting pain, it is best to isolate the cause of pain. From here, the doctor can prescribe the proper course of treatment – whether it be structural via surgery or something different.

Controversy exists over whether spine doctors who use arthroscopy for degenerative knee arthritis provides palliative relief. The authors of one study conducted a prospective, randomized study comparing arthroscopic lavage, débridement, and a sham procedure; no significant therapeutic benefit was shown when spine doctors used this. Careful assessment of the study design, however, revealed poor preoperative disease classification with inadequate radiographic assessment, and concerns with patient selection criteria and selection bias. In another study, long-term results of patients undergoing arthroscopic knee débridement in the context of degenerative arthritis were reviewed. Sixty-seven percent of patients at a mean of 13.2 years postoperatively had not undergone arthroplasty, and satisfaction scores rating the success of the arthroscopic procedure was 8.6 on a scale of 0 to 10.¹